This thread is for posting any info, screenshots, trailers, or the like. I will be updating this post as more info becomes available.

News and previews

Prince of persia set for a holiday release

quote IGN

A new Prince of Persia game should be on store shelves in time for the holiday season and will be available for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, Ubisoft announced today.

News of an upcoming Prince of Persia title leaked out in January in an Ubisoft quarterly financial statement, but the company officially commented on the planned game for the first time this week.

The upcoming game, still untitled, is being developed by the same Ubisoft Montreal team that worked on the original Prince of Persia trilogy and last year's ambitious Assassin's Creed.

Details are still thin, but in a news release Ubisoft said the new Prince of Persia title "is opening a new chapter in the Prince of Persia universe, featuring a new breed of gameplay. The game is poised to rejuvenate the action-adventure genre in addition to introducing a brand-new illustrative art style."

Ubisoft also said it plans to release a Prince of Persia game specifically designed for the Nintendo DS, featuring "an entirely new storyline and new characters."

Forget the Prince of Persia you once knew. The Prince of the last generation of game consoles lived in a static world. He went from one obstacle to the next and no matter how many times you played the quest, the layout remained the same. Once a saw blade, always a saw blade -- such was the life of a trap in previous Prince of Persias. The new Prince of Persia, built on the Assassin's Creed Anvil engine, is set in a dynamic, open world. The traps you encounter in an area in hour one will be completely different from the ones you come across in hour six. The world continually changes based on the choices you make, bringing considerable replayability to Ubisoft Montreal's upcoming title.

While the world is dynamically changing throughout your adventure, it should be noted that the Prince will not. There are no weapon upgrades and no acrobatic moves to unlock. The Prince you control at the outset of the game is the same one you will use to take down the final boss. That's not to say the Prince won't endure the emotional toll of cleansing the world of corruption, but from a gameplay perspective, you will have all the tools you need in the Prince to force the evil Ahriman back into his prison.Elika, on the other hand, has some growing to do. Though a descendant of the original guardians of Ahriman's prison, Elika has had little need to tap into her ancestral powers. Her magical abilities are fairly weak at the start of the game and you'll need to unlock new magic to get past some areas of the world. When the lieutenant (aka boss) of an area is defeated, Elika and the Prince make their way to fertile ground.

Symbolized by a beacon of blue light, the fertile ground is the section of a level that can be used to rid the area of corruption. Elika touches the ground and uses her magic. Grass springs up, the dark clouds part, the corruption dissipates and the area is healthy again. The healed area also spawns numerous "light seeds." These luminous balls are magical currency for Elika. You can now go back through an area and collect the seeds, which can then be used to purchase new magical abilities.

The seeds are spread throughout the level and will put you on brand new paths of exploration. The corruption is gone from the area, so there are no traps, but you still have considerable acrobatic challenges to complete to get all the seeds.

Different magic can open access to new areas. This isn't to say that you can't visit an area, but there may be elements you can't get past without specific magic. So the powers you choose will guide your path through the open world. One example of this is shown in the E3 demo. There are red magical plates embedded in structures around the level. With the Rebound spell, Elika and the Prince leap from one plate to the next. Each plate focuses Elika's magical power. Again, it's not something she's ever needed to do before, but with corruption seeping into the world, Elika is forced to discover her potential.

The E3 demo begins with the Prince and his companion Elika arriving in an area infested by corruption. The black goo acts as your constant adversary throughout POP -- it makes up the traps and enemies you encounter. Elika's Compass spell casts a light on the direction of your objective. It doesn't tell you how to get there, but it will keep you from getting completely lost. And it's a clever way to negate the need for a mini-map -- or any HUD at all.

The Prince and Elika nimbly make their way across the map. Movement is quick. Though POP runs off the Assassin's Creed engine, the Prince and Elika are lighter on their feet than Altair. Rather than just holding a button, you will need to properly time jumps, master the skill of running across walls, and save yourself from falling with the Prince's handy clawed gauntlet.

As we've stated previously, Elika is in no way a nuisance. She follows behind dutifully and will find her own way around the area without ever distracting the Prince. However, you will need her at times. Some gaps are too wide for the Prince to leap across. For these, you need to team up with Elika. This is easy enough -- just tap the Elika button when in the air and she will jump combine with the Prince for a somersault throw to clear the gap.

Watching the Prince and Elika progress across a level is a real treat. The hand-drawn style of the world makes it appear as if you were playing in a watercolor painting. And, as usual, Ubisoft Montreal has created fluid animations. There is a surreal quality to this Prince, which is set in a more fantastical world than the previous trio of titles. There's a great flow to the level layout -- and it is an open world, so you have options in how you proceed to your objective.

Using the Rebound spell to bounce across several magical plates, the Prince and Elika end up in an arena. They face a Hunter, one of Ahriman's lieutenants. For the purposes of the demo, the Hunter has been beefed up to his maximum potential. But in the actual game, the Hunter and other bosses will evolve over time, gaining new skills and powers so that each battle becomes successively harder.

Combat in Prince of Persia is always one-on-one. And it looks awesome. Previously we had only seen a small snippet of combat. The E3 demo shows off why Ubisoft needed to keep battles focused on a single opponent. The camera remains very close, so close that a second opponent couldn't fit on screen. In this way you get a level of combat detail usually reserved for fighting games. There are many cinematic moments in a fight, whether it's the camera zooming in when the Prince and the Hunter's weapons lock together or when the screen freezes for a moment to punctuate an attack. Each face button has a singular purpose in combat. Ubisoft has delivered on the promise that there are no "combos." Instead, the combat fluidly adjusts with every press of a button. You can tap the Elika button five times if you like and she will come in and do quick strikes. Or you can tap the sword button three times, then hit the Elika button and then go back to the sword button. Yes, it sounds like a combo, but do this three different times and you may get three different results depending on the context of when and where you hit the buttons.

During the battle with the Hunter, we saw it overcome by corruption. Slick black goo swarmed its body. This is one of four possible states each boss can assume. In corruption state, the Hunter cannot be hurt by normal weapons. That means the Prince needs to effectively use Elika to do magical damage. As the Hunter takes hits, pieces of corruption fly off. Each state corresponds to a different type of attack. This is meant to force gamers to switch up their strategies and avoid mashing the sword button to get through battles.

Combat in Prince of Persia is elegant. It's clearly inspired by the swashbuckling of Errol Flynn. Just watching the drawn out battle, we were tense. These are life-or-death struggles and not the typical "wade through a sea of enemies" combat sequences. It's obvious that the previous Prince games attempted to emulate a similar style, but the new POP has a flare to it that outdoes Ubisoft's earlier efforts.

After getting the Hunter down to about half its health, it breaks free and moves to higher ground. It stops at the fertile ground. After a few acrobatic moves towards the Prince's destination, the Hunter releases a new corruption enemy into the world. Each boss has a new enemy/trap that it releases into the world. This piece of corruption spreads to all of the worlds yet to be cleansed. In this fashion, each boss you fight will add a new corruption to the world so that they begin to pile onto one another. So each successive area becomes more difficult, as there are more types of corruption you'll encounter.

Touching the corruption means certain death. Progressing to the second half of the battle with the Hunter means evading these rolling bits of corruption. You may even notice that some corruption reaches out for you as you pass.

Once the Prince and Elika reach the Hunter, the fight resumes. The second half of the battle is now less epic than the first. And defeating the Hunter is no easy task. At one point the corrupt state of the Hunter knocked the Prince to the ground. The Hunter then attempted to slam its bladed hand through the Prince's face. The Prince caught the blade and had to force the Hunter back (with a button-tapping minigame). Once you defeat the Hunter, it escapes before you can end its life, meaning it's likely to make a return later in the game, stronger than before and looking to even the score.

For as much as we were amazed by Prince of Persia, there is one aspect that may disappoint some gamers. You essentially cannot die. If you utterly fail a jump and are about to fall to certain death, Elika will project an astral hand that will catch the Prince and place him on safe ground (aka, the last checkpoint). In combat, she will also intercede to spare the life of the Prince. Basically, this is like having the unlimited rewind functionality of the Sands of Time. Ubisoft defends the lifeline, saying that it's really no different than dying and re-spawning at a checkpoint. The only difference is that instead of a "you died" screen, you get an admonition from Elika and a reset to a checkpoint. According to Ubisoft, it helps the gameflow.

It's unclear how this may affect the sense of challenge in Prince of Persia. We'd need to play a bit of the game to see if this is a positive or not for the game design. Setting the Elika safety net aside, Prince of Persia looks like a sure contender for Game of the Year. It takes the POP concept into a new realm. The art style is great, the combat looks thrilling and the acrobatic elements are as good -- if not better -- than ever. And Elika is a welcome addition to the series.

Small walkthrough of what appears to be one of the first levels. This teaches us that everything Yhatzee said about this game is absolutely true, specifically the let's jump around on the ceiling dressed like tw*ts part... still, I hold out hope this game can be good... nothing compared to the SoT trilogy, but still...

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Laugh last and laugh the loudest,Dark as the darkest cloud is,Looming over haunted houses,You'd have never stepped out if you thought about it.